signed, sealed, delivered —

The bill doesn't unlock tablets and lasts just one year.

Congress hasn't done much this year in the area of tech policy, but Congressional leaders and President Obama are both ready to crow about one of the few things that did get done—the passage of a bill allowing consumers to unlock their cell phones.

Obama signed the bill today, and according to a blog post on the White House web site, thus achieved "a rare trifecta: a win for American consumers, a win for wireless competition, and an example of democracy at its best."

The celebratory blog post was written by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Zients, assistant to the President for Economic Policy. It explains the origins of the bill as an electronic petition by phone unlocker and "digital rights activist" Sina Khanifar, who ultimately garnered 114,000 signatures that got sent to the White House.

Congress took action to heed this call in a bipartisan manner. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy partnered with the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to promptly introduce joint legislation restoring the exemption to allow mobile phones to be unlocked. The bill also directed the Librarian of Congress to determine whether other wireless devices, such as tablets, should be unlockable. This commonsense legislation ensured that consumers could transfer their phones between carriers, and that second-hand phones could be put to good use by new owners connecting to a network of their choice.

The bill was passed by Congress last week, when the House of Representatives agreed to the more strongly-worded Senate version of the bill. It's the first time a "We the People" petition has led to legislation that ultimately passed and was signed into law.

"At a time when partisan gridlock all too often threatens progress on everyday issues that matter to consumers, working together we listened to your voices, and the American people benefited as a result," concluded the blog post.

The bill passed after the FCC started putting pressure on cell phone carriers to allow unlocking. The carriers agreed to enact policies allowing unlocking by February 2015, meaning that industry opposition to the bill had been neutralized before passage.

But the bill has limits. It only lasts until 2015 and it doesn't apply to tablets.

"Unfortunately, Congress wasn't ready to deal with the underlying copyright issue that makes it illegal to unlock your phone," wrote Sina Khanifar in an email update to his supporters. "Doing so would require amending the DMCA’s controversial anti-circumvention provisions, a step that’s desperately needed."